Sergio-Tiger, belly putter among hot golf topics

Long before any golf shots were struck this week, the game found itself atop headlines with part three of the Sergio-Tiger feud as well as part two of the belly putter issue. The PGA Tour is coming into a highly entertaining stretch of golf with the Colonial Invitational played this week at Hogan's Alley, with the Memorial Tournament hosted by Jack Nicklaus being contested next week at Muirfield Village, site of this coming autumn's Presidents Cup Matches, and with the playing of the second major championship of the year, the United States Open at venerable Merion Golf Club in Philadelphia, during the second week of June.

I hate the thought that we continue to waste words on Sergio Garcia. It's hard to ascertain whether Garcia's fried chicken remark will hurt him down the line in the world of reputation and major endorsements. What is clear is that there isn't much of a filter between Sergio's mind and mouth. It's one thing to blame the bunker rakers for you loss in the British Open at Carnoustie or to blame Tiger's gallery for you poor shot at the Players championship. However, Sergio's commentary at a Ryder Cup awards dinner this past Tuesday evening simply showed a lack of grace coupled with a lack of intelligence on Garcia's part.

After six months of discussion, the United States Golf Association and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews, the game's keepers of all things rule oriented, went forward to formalize a ban on the anchoring of the long putter and the belly putter effective Jan. 1, 2016. The newest entry into the Rules of Golf will become Rule 14-1b for players at all levels of the game.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether or not the American PGA Tour and the European PGA Tour will get on board and keep golf's rules consistent on the amateur and the professional levels. Four of the last six major championship winners, Keegan Bradley, Webb Simpson, Ernie Els and Adam Scott, have all used a belly putter or a long putter anchored to their body. Approximately 15 percent of the exempt members of the American and European Tours currently anchor their putter. There is an entire generation of young players who have always putted this way. Els and Scott went to the long putter because of their own personal difficulties with the putting stroke. However, Bradley and Simpson have always putted this way as has LPGA phenon Stacy Lewis. What's most perplexing to me is that the first recorded instance of the use of a belly putter was in the 1920s by Leo Diegel. Diegel competed in the Jones-Hagen-Sarazen era and was no slouch. He won 37 professional events, two major titles - the 1928 and 1929 PGA Championships - played on four Ryder Cup teams, and is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame.

Sergio-Tiger, belly putter and Publinks among hot topics

Personally, I think that the USGA and the R&A are recording the proverbial triple-bogey on this one. Although I hope that the professionals can stay consistent with the Rules of Golf, it wouldn't surprise me if the era of bifurcation is upon us with the USGA doing it one way and the PGA Tour doing it the other way. Won't that make for chaos if you can use your belly putter at the Masters and the PGA Championship, but cannot have it at the U.S. Open and the British Open. Only time will tell.

On a third front, the USGA announced earlier this year that 2013 would mark the final year of the playing of the U.S. Public Links Championship and the U.S. Women's Public Links Championship. The first Publinks was played in 1922 at Ottawa Park Golf Course in Toledo. The Women's Publinks was initially contested at the Yahara Hills Golf Course in Madison.

Originally, the U.S. Amateur was seen as the top amateur event for the country club and college set. The concept behind the Publinks was to hold a national championship for the non-country clubbers. It was the municipal golf course amateur event of the year. While golfers such as Bobby Jones, an attorney, was teeing it up in the U.S. Amateur, a host of truck drivers, car salesmen and bartenders were competing in the Publinks.

From the Northern California perspective, Verne Callison was the king of Sacramento amateur golf in the 1950s and 1960s. He owned a bar on Fulton Avenue about one mile south of the Haggin Oaks golf complex. Callison won almost every amateur tourney of note in our neck of the woods. He also won the Publinks in 1960 and 1967. Dean Prince of San Francisco was an insurance salesman who won the 1978 Publinks. One of the kids I grew up with, Jerry Vidovic, won the 1977 Publinks at Milwaukee's Brown Deer Park Golf Course.

Yet over the years, the Publinks became just another version of the U.S. Amateur. Golfers in the field were invariably college stars who would ultimately graduate to the PGA Tour. When Dan Sikes in 1958 and Bob Lunn in 1963 went from Publinks champion to PGA Tour winners, they were the exception to the rule. From 1922 through 1979, they were the only ones to make an impact in professional golf. The rest simply returned to their bartender jobs.

In 1980, Jodie Mudd won the Publinks and the floodgates opened. He was soon joined on tour by other past champs such as Billy Mayfair, Tim Clark, Hunter Haas, D.J. Trahan, Trevor Immelman, Ryan Moore, Brandt Snedeker and Colt Knost. A win at the Publinks even got you a spot in the Masters.

The USGA will replace the Publinks in 2014 with a two-man championship. I for one will be sorry to see the Publinks go. I first played in the 36-hole local Publinks qualifier at Cog Hill outside Chicago in 1969. I was 16 years old at the time. I played Publinks golf for every year through 2007 when I went to my final qualifier in Fernley, Nevada. My 16-year-old son, Nick, played that same day in Fernley for what would be his first USGA tournament. Although I was never better than an alternate into the national Publinks, it was always a great qualifying event, whether I was at Harding Park, Haggin Oaks or the handful of other quality public golf venues I went to during that period of time. From my own personal perspective, an era of public golf history will go by the wayside with the final playing of the Men's Publinks this July at the Laurel Hill Golf Club in Lorton, Virginia.